Socrata offers free access to its open data platform, API tools, data hosting, and technology support to National Day of Civic Hacking events across the country.
Seattle, Washington May 14, 2013 – Socrata (http://www.socrata.com), a Seattle-based cloud software company focused exclusively on democratizing access to government data, today announced its sponsorship of the National Civic Day of Hacking. Scheduled for June 1st and 2nd, the event is made up of nearly 90 local, community events where more than 5,000 developers, artist, entrepreneurs, journalists, government employees, and concerned citizens are expected to work with government data to create web and mobile applications.
Socrata is supporting events across the country by offering free access to its open data platform, API creation tools, data hosting, and visualization technology to any community group organizing a hackathon for the National Day of Civic Hacking. The community platform is available at https://communities.socrata.com/ (See further details below.)
Socrata has long been a supporter of the civic hacking movement, hosting and sponsoring events across the country, from Oakland to New York City, and promoting the creation of standards for making government data available in open, machine-readable formats.
“The civic hacker has a lot of power to improve quality of life for Americans and empower them with information they can use. Hackers need the tools, technology, and data in the right format to create apps that change people’s lives,” says Socrata CEO Kevin Merritt.
Several Socrata customers are already supporting National Day of Civic Hacking events in their communities and contributing valuable data sets and APIs, including, Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York City.
“We are excited to have Socrata join an already very innovative group as a sponsor for National Day of Civic Hacking. It is important for more companies to demonstrate their commitment to civic hacking and embrace the value it creates for everyone involved,” says National Day of Civic Hacking Coordinator Michael Brennan.
The Offer
Socrata will provide free tools and support to those attending events via a central website, http://communities.socrata.com, including:
Data Hosting – Civic hackers can import up to 10 datasets into the Socrata platform to be searched, filtered, visualized, commented on, and shared on social networks. Socrata will also support importing and mapping geospatial data via Esri Shapefile and KML/KMZ files.
API Creation Tools – Imported data will be made accessible in machine-readable formats via Socrata API Foundry. Groups will have free, customized, Socrata-managed APIs for their datasets, as well as automatically generated accompanying documentation and management tools to help track usage of the APIs.
Catalog Page – Every community’s data sets will be hosted in its own mini-site on http://communities.socrata.com. They will have the same functionality as a full-fledged Socrata data portal, but will be personalized for the group.
Hackathon in a Box – Socrata’s “Hackathon in a Box” website will offer specific advice to event leaders, including a downloadable “How to Run a Hackathon” guide, details about Socrata APIs, and ways to contact Socrata for further assistance.
Event Support – Socrata engineers will attend some events in person, as well as having a support team available on the day of the event virtually via IRC and Google+ Hangouts. Also, during the run-up to the event, email and @socrata Twitter support will be available to help groups get set up.
About Socrata
Socrata is the cloud software company focused exclusively on democratizing access to government data. We help government leaders improve transparency, modernize citizen access to information, and bring facts into every decision, with unprecedented speed and cost savings.
Delivered as turnkey cloud services, Socrata’s data consumerization products unlock data in enterprise silos and transform it into useful information that everyone can easily access, visualize, share and reuse. Innovators like the World Bank, Medicare, Data.gov, EnergyStar, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Oregon, Montgomery County, and Maryland, have all chosen Socrata as the data sharing platform for their open innovation initiatives. To learn more about Socrata, visit http://www.socrata.com or follow us on Twitter @socrata